Chasing the dragon

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For the Hong Kong film, see Chasing the Dragon (film).
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Chasing the dragon, aka foily

"Chasing the dragon" (CTD) (traditional Chinese: 追龍; simplified Chinese: 追龙; pinyin: zhuī lóng; Jyutping: zeoi1 lung4), or "foily" in Australian English,[1] refers to inhaling the vapor of a powdered psychoactive drug off a heated sheet of aluminium foil. The moving vapor is chased after with a tube (often rolled foil) through which the user inhales.[2] The "chasing" occurs as the user gingerly keeps the liquid moving in order to keep it from overheating and burning up too quickly, on a heat conducting material such as aluminium foil.

Another use of the term "chasing the dragon" refers to the elusive pursuit of a high equal to the user's first in the use of a drug, which after acclimation is no longer achievable.[3] Used in this way, "chasing the dragon" can refer to any recreational drug administered by any means.

Etymology

Chasing the dragon is a slang phrase of Cantonese origin from Hong Kong. The Hong Kong film Chasing the Dragon is named from the origin of the etymology.[citation needed]

History

The practice of smoking low grade

HK$2 each, which was then vaporized on tin-foil while the consumer inhaled the rising smoke through a cardboard tube. The use of common materials for consumption of the drugs allowed the addict to quickly dispose of the evidence if they detected the police nearby, and also allowed them to forgo carrying incriminating objects on their person (such as pipes or syringes).[4]

Cultural aspects

Aluminum foil is considered to be low-quality

drug abuse
.

Risks

It is always harmful to expose the lungs to any kind of smoke or heated vapor.[5] (See smoke inhalation.)

Drug overdose

A drug overdose caused by chasing the dragon is hard to predict because this technique does not deliver a standardized dosage. It is virtually impossible even for skilled users to know how much of the substance has been evaporated, burned, and inhaled. These combined factors may create a false sense of security when a given dose seems safe to repeat, but may cause an overdose when all the factors are randomly excluded.

A vaporizer is a safer drug paraphernalia than aluminum foil.

Lung cancer from natural talc

Talc is an

cut with cheap talc. Natural talc is cheap but contains asbestos while asbestos-free talc is more expensive. Talc that has asbestos is generally accepted as being able to cause lung cancer if it is inhaled. The evidence about asbestos-free talc is less clear, according to the American Cancer Society.[6]

Talc can be avoided by dissolving the substance in water, filtering and discarding non-dissolving particles with a syringe, and evaporating the water of the dissolved substances.

Substance specific

Example Drugs Used

Drugs that are commonly inhaled this way include but are not limited to morphine, heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone, opium, and ya ba (a pill containing caffeine and methamphetamine).

Heroin

Inhaling heroin appears to rarely lead to toxic leukoencephalopathy.[7][8] There are also documented cases of both severe acute asthma and exacerbation of underlying asthma caused by heroin inhalation, potentially resulting in death.[9][10][11]

Advantages

Vaporizing significantly decreases or eliminates certain risks of heroin use, such as the transmission of HIV, hepatitis, and other blood-borne diseases through needle sharing, the introduction of skin bacteria to the bloodstream due to non-sterile injection, and the stress that injection puts on veins.

Oral administration may also eliminate these risks, but the high is much less intense and longer.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-19-982994-1
    . Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  2. ^
    PMID 9246796
    .
  3. ^ "What Does It Mean To "Chase The Dragon"?". Serenity Oaks Wellness. 16 May 2018.
  4. ^ "The smoking of heroin in Hong Kong". United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 1 January 1958.
  5. PMID 25610115
    .
  6. ^ "Talcum Powder and Cancer". www.cancer.org.
  7. PMID 18194689
    .
  8. PMID 21255414
    .
  9. PMID 3147049
    .
  10. S2CID 14206292
    .
  11. PMID 16236840
    .
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